Giovanni Bottesini enjoyed a globe-trotting career as “the Paganini of the double bass”. He was also a successful conductor and a composer, although only the music he wrote for his own instrument has outlived him. Many of the works on this recording emphasize the essential bel canto quality of Bottesini’s inspiration, most explicitly in the dazzling Bellini Fantasia, but also in the duets with clarinet and soprano which demand virtuosity of both feeling and technique. The Concerto No. 2 is a fully mature work, from the somewhat laconic first movement, through the simply singing second, to the third, driven by a rhythmic figure typical of the polonaise and the Cuban bolero.